I Knew
by TheAnonymousJaneDoe
Summary: What was going through Simone's head while she was being taken into custody?


**Never have I watched such a thought-provoking movie. The following is my interpretation of what was running through her mind at the conclusion of the film.**

* * *

I'm going to prison, I think as I glance out the window of the government vehicle, avoiding the judgmental glare of the police officer in the rear view mirror. Clandestinely, I twist the Buddhist prayer beads that Annabelle gave me and I think. I think about how my life, my perfect life complete with a loving boyfriend, wonderful job, and high comfort level has literally crumbled away. I know that she loves me and even though it shouldn't matter; after all she's 17 and I'm 36, I find comfort in her affections. I find myself unable to stop thinking about last night. Our night. Logically, I know. My rationale knows what I did, at least according to society, the Church, my Aunt Immaculata, and practically everyone in my life, is wrong, criminal even. I'm going to prison, will possibly have to register as a sex offender, and will never be able to teach again. I know that I've lost everything and yet I find comfort as I remember her beautiful smile. On one hand, I'm disgusted with and unable to confront the monster I've surely become. I had _sex_, actual _sex _with a minor, an underage _female_. I know that they'll never forgive me. Moreover, I know I'll never forgive myself.

_Irresponsible. Reprehensible. Immoral. Pervert. Pedophile. Predator. _

These branding words race through my mind and I know I'll never be able to silence them. After all, aren't I all of those things? I'm going to prison. Without my family, without the faith I surely forfeited the first time I even fantasized about her lips on my own and without the reassurance that I'll ever see her again. My mind flashes back to the very first time I met her. The first thing I noticed was her mask – right way I could see that Annabelle was a woman who bore the scars of withheld parental love, empty ambition, unfulfilled desire, and the angst associated with never before being able to trust another person. I felt an almost immediate pull toward her – one that I wouldn't understand until later was constituted by a force far greater and far more dangerous than maternal obligation.

_"I think he's talking about sex," she declares proudly in response to a question I posed to the class regarding poetic interpretation._

_"What would make you think that?,"I ask softly, already regretting indulging her comment._

_"Well, 'vast shell reaching into endless space' – sounds like a metaphor for the body in orgasms.'Endless space' could represent the infinite possibilities that open for you when you climax', and – She pauses, a smirk spreading over her countenance as the rest of the class begins to giggle. _

_"Rich thick fluids? That's obvious. I think he's implying that sex and love can merge together." _

_She pauses again, pressing the tip of her pen against her temple, eyes twinkling mischievously._

_"Especially good sex." _

_As she flashes me a coy grin, I look away, feeling a blush creep across my cheeks. Mercifully the bell rings. _

_"Annabelle, I'd like to speak with you", I say in a semi-stern voice to the still-smiling, precocious teenager._

_An intrigued look on her face, she leans against the desk in front of where I'm standing, never once breaking eye contact. I wait until the rest of the class has departed._

_"Look," I begin, trying not to sound exasperated. "I respect my students and I encourage you all to have your own opinions…"_

_"But…" she interjects, as though anticipating chastisement._

_"But I can't help but think that you were trying to get a rise out of me."_

_Annabelle moves closer. "And why would I want to do that?"_

_I don't budge. "Perhaps to get attention?"_

_She arches an eyebrow. "Or perhaps I'm intrigued."_

_"By what?", I ask. _

_She looks me up and down. "By you."_

It was at that point that I knew Annabelle was trouble, but it wasn't until after we'd grown closer that I knew I was smitten.

_"You play with that cross a lot," She says coming into my room one night. She takes a seat beside me, moving closer to me as she speaks. I knew that, given newfound knowledge of her sexual preferences, this was inappropriate. Clearly, she's flirting. I knew that I should move away. Yet I don't. _

_"It's,uh, a nervous habit", I say, feeling my heart race as I notice for the first time just how beautiful she really is. I know I shouldn't be thinking about how gorgeous she looks beneath the dim lights of my room. I know that I shouldn't notice the swell of her breasts beneath her tight white camisole, and I know that I shouldn't feel my stomach shouldn't flip-flop at the sight of her radiant smile. Yet I do. And I do nothing to stop or fight it._

_"So, I make you nervous?," she asks playfully, stroking my arm and leaning in to kiss me. _

_Though my racing heart and burning skin compel me to lean into her embrace and fuck her until dawn, my rational side screams at me to reject her advances . It wins. This time._

_"Don't," I say, knowing I'm in trouble as I watch, captivated, as she exits my room._

My whole life, I've played by the rules. I went to Church. I said my 'Hail Mary's'. I never once missed Mass. That is, until I met Amanda – my first true love. From the very first kiss, I knew that I could never go back to the quiet, comfortable, Catholic, and heterosexual armor I'd lived in for the last 22 years. What had originally started out as a quiet experiment quickly grew into a passionate, Sapphic affair. Gradually, I discarded my conservative buttresses, laughing the hardest I'd ever laughed as the two of us engaged in various forms of mischief. We stole wine from the registry, snuck kisses during mass, and had heated sex behind bushes during what was supposed to be quiet prayer time. We exchanged our first I love yours out on the front porch of the boarding school – in the rain during the annual dance with St. Paul's boarding school for boys. I still remember the smile that spread across my face after I learned that love which swelled inside me was reciprocated. Without hesitation, I left behind the religious ideals I once held so close. Though my Aunt Immaculata often yelled at me, she remained ignorant as to the actual source of my spontaneous outburst of rebellious behavior. She dismissed it as the by-product of adolescence, never once suspecting that her precious niece spent her Saturday nights on her knees. But I wasn't praying. I didn't pray for years – that is, until Amanda took her own life. After two years of what seemed like complete happiness, the two of us had been planning to come out, together. Though she, like me, had come from a strictly religious family, the two of us felt ready to face the impending disapproval of our immediate families. But lately, I'd noticed a change in her. No longer did she smile, laugh, or joke the way she used to. When asked she attributed it to 'nerves' related to our coming out plans. The more I tried to assure her that it would be fine, the more she wanted to back out. The tension between us became greater and greater until it finally culminated in a gigantic fight. I'd insisted that I no longer wanted to say in the closet, that I didn't care what anyone thought of us because I was _proud _of the love we shared. Amanda yelled at me, claiming that I didn't understand why she was upset because I was too spoiled, too sheltered from the type of dark secrets and things that haunted her. She then stormed out, unwilling to talk with me. The next day, she was gone. I began to panic, looking through her belongings for any clues as to where she could've gone.

In her pillow case, I found a note.

_S –_

_"I know you won't understand why I did this, but I hope that one day you will forgive me and soon forget me. I've tried to find happiness, but dark secrets seem to find me and I can't breathe. You were always the strong one._

- _A_

My eyes fill with tears as I remember what happened next: that afternoon, the boarding school received a call from the county coroner: a body of a young woman who'd hung herself had been found, cold and dead in the nearby woods.

After Amanda died, I'd withdrawn, sure I'd never be able to carry on normally. For a year, I was but a shell, reigned by my demons, a whirlwind of emotions swirling through my head. I felt anger, frustration, and most of all, a darkening sadness that came with knowing that I'd not only lost the love of my life, but also that I'd lost her without ever knowing the dark secrets that tormented her troubled soul. I'd loved her and I had lost her. Slowly, I reintegrated back into the Catholic faith, realizing this time the possibility of love on behalf of the entity I'd spent the better part of Amanda and I's relationship rejecting. Maybe He was okay with the fact that I was gay. Maybe through faith I could fill the aching emptiness inside me if I tried again to play by the rules.

And for a while, I did. I found a passion in teaching, reaccepted the Catholic faith with zeal that all but delighted sister Immaculata, and even found a charming, handsome boyfriend who I honestly felt I could grow to love, though I would never tell him about Amanda. But never again did I feel that electric spark that I felt every time Amanda and I were together.

That is, until I met Annabelle. Though I couldn't explain it, Annabelle reignited within me a fire that I thought had been permanently extinguished by the sorrow of my loss. She listened when I told her about Amanda, she cared about me, and she made me feel like myself for the first time since Amanda's death.

And I knew. I knew that I was breaking all kind of rules when I left campus with her, I knew that allowing her to hold me as I mourned the loss of my Amanda epitomized _everything _that was inappropriate, and I knew with every fiber of my being that the surge of love I felt _explode_ from every cell in my body when she sang to me at the annual dance ultimately meant that I was all kinds of screwed. But somehow, all my worries faded as she pressed her lips against my own beneath the pouring rain on the porch where Amanda and I had first professed our love for one another. As I felt her tongue slide into my mouth, I knew that I was going to prison, but rather than pull away, I deepened the kiss. As the two of us quickly snuck up to my bedroom, I stopped thinking, I stopped knowing, and allowed the mixture of lust and love to overtake me as I pulled off her shirt. In that moment, as her warm, wet lips moved down my body, nothing mattered. It didn't matter that this was against everything in which I believed, it didn't matter that this was illegal and, by my own faith, immoral and it didn't matter that the naked body beneath me, the strong hand I felt press into my core, belonged to a girl who was only 17. As our cries of pleasure broke the heavy surrounding silence, all that mattered was the almost palpable love present in the atmosphere as our hearts beat for one another.

But after that night, our fantasy world came to an end in the form of Sister Immaculata barging in on us, and, after gasping in horror at the sight of us nearly naked, demanding I see her in her office immediately.

I finished dressing, and, feeling a sense of doom I'd imagine is similar to that felt by an inmate heading to his execution, entered her office.

_"I'm at a loss for words", she begins, not even attempting to conceal the thick disgust in her voice "How could you let something like this happen?"_

_"I don't know," I reply meekly._

_"Well, surely there must have been a moment where you thought that this wasn't the right thing to do."_

_For the first time, I look her in the eyes."That would be every moment."_

I hear the static of a walkie-talkie behind me and, as I feel a pair of strong arms hoist me up, I feel my heart shatter as I realize that, with one night, I have completely destroyed the life I fought so hard to build for myself. I am unable to meet the eyes of the staring, frightened students who crowd the hallway in shock as the law enforcement officer guides me down the hall.

_"Wait!," I hear a familiar voice cry. I turn around and see Annabelle, who has tears in her eyes. She runs toward me. _

_"Wait!"_

_Ignoring the incredulous glares of her classmates and the officer, she hands me her beads, the Buddhist prayer beads that she always wore because they were given to her by the first girl she ever fell in love with. Though my life is shambles, I cast her a teary smile which she returns. _

_And as I see the love in her eyes, part of me can't help but think that it was all worth it. _


End file.
